Two men, Harry Wayne "KC" Casey and Richard Finch, were working for TK Records in Florida when they met; a short time later, they decided to create their own band called KC and the Sunshine Band.

Though they were heavily influenced by many genres of music, including Rhythm and Blues and Motown, these two (and their other two band mates) wanted to make music that would be suitable for parties, a happy kind of pop style which was easy for people to dance to. Their first breakout hit (but their fourth single) was "Get Down Tonight." This song was one of the first to be identified worldwide as part of what became known as disco music.

The '70s were good to the band, as they earned an impressive nine Grammy nominations and three Grammy awards, and they sold more than a hundred million records worldwide. But the '80s arrived and disco died.

There was a brief resurgence of disco in the '90s, which prompted VH1 to feature KC and the Sunshine Band as part of their television series Behind the Music. The hour-long expose highlighted Casey's drug use, of course. Casey says this of the episode:

"I was the typical Behind the Music story," Casey told Ed Condran of the Virginian-Pilot. "It starts out and everything is wonderful, and a half hour into the show I was on drugs."

The group still performs about a hundred shows each year and does well selling their greatest hits collections.